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Comment by perryh2 | Hacker News Reader

I wish Lyft expanded into other countries. I'm visiting Mexico and Uber seems to be the best way for foreigners to get around. Taxis there are known to overcharge, just like the taxis anywhere else.

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Taxis in Brazil started organizing under apps like 99taxi and others before Uber existed there. It's not really rocket science technology and Uber isn't providing awesome support services (based on my experience with that). They shouldn't be feeling too secure in their position.

Agreed. Taxis in the Netherlands are often overpriced, outright scams[1], aggressive[2], have curiously non-functioning card payment despite policy, etc. Uber is available, but nothing else. I'd gladly switch to an alternative for a number of reasons.

[1] http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/09/taxi-driver-ch...

[2] http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/02/judges-uphold-...

To be fair, it is mostly just the taxis in Amsterdam that are notoriously bad — precisely because there are so many tourists. These taxi drivers would rather serve tourists with trips to and from the airport exclusively (it pays rather well, and you can easily scam the type of tourist that limits their visit to our country to just Amsterdam).

Taxis in most cities here are actually okay on the whole.

I've still encountered the "oh we'll have to go to an ATM instead" in the Hague despite explicitly asking the dispatcher if I could pay by card. That was for an expensive trip to Schiphol, for which 4(!) Uber drivers I had requested decided to cancel.

It can be that the same drivers will work for Uber (black level) and for taxi companies. The taxi companies that I've encountered in the NL don't have anything comparable to an app where you can hail and pay, so for that reason alone Uber still may provide a better service even though the drivers may be the same.

MyTaxi covers a large part of Europe and covers parts of the US as well I believe

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